


Music To My Ears

by Gilded_Moon



Series: That's Where Music Comes From [1]
Category: The Witchlands Series - Susan Dennard
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Band class is wild, Based on true stories from my high school time, CWP/Crack Without Plot, Everyone Plays An Instrument, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Crack, High School Band AU, I'm sorry Susan Denard, M/M, Multi, The "Everyone thinks they should be together but they aren't" trope, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27607481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilded_Moon/pseuds/Gilded_Moon
Summary: Iseult is dating her childhhood best friend Aeduan. They run YouTube channels and do collabs.Safi is living the high school dream with her best friend Iseult. If only that trumpet section leader wasn't so hot.. or annoying.Or the Witchlands gang has to make it through high school and all its challenges.
Relationships: Aeduan/Iseult det Midenzi, Iseult det Midenzi & Safiya fon Hasstrel, Leopold fon Cartorra/Caden Fitz Grieg, Ryber Fortiza/Kullen Ikray, Safiya fon Hasstrel/Merik Nihar, Vivia Nihar/Stacia "Stix" Sotar
Series: That's Where Music Comes From [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018462
Comments: 19
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I blame this on my best friend. Please enjoy the story inspired by true stories of when we were in high school.- Moon

Iseult had seen many stupid decisions in her school career. These ranged from Safi jumping off the fireman’s pole on the playground because of a dare to Aeduan walking into a wall he did not see to Caden eating an entire bag of ghost pepper flakes in a bet for twenty dollars. None of these could quite compare to what the new band director, Habim, was currently doing.

He was taking a nap. On the _sex couch_. The couch that two teachers had been caught sleeping together on top of. The same couch that long-gone students had _enjoyed_ themselves on. The same couch that had not been cleaned in the fifteen years it had been in the band room.

Iseult looked at Safi who was just as disgusted as she was. “Should we wake him up?”

“Oh yes,” Safi said. She walked past Iseult and started yelling. “Habim! Get up! Please get off that couch!”

Habim jerked awake and stood up. “Why can’t I sleep on that couch, Safi?”

Everyone grimaced as Leopold said, “It’s a couch of sin and depravity sir.”

“I’m not going to ask about that. Go get your instruments out and set up,” Habim said. “It’s a marching day, so make sure you get the right instrument this time.”

This comment was directed at Leopold who had tried to march with his harp during the last marching band rehearsal because he had misunderstood directions. Leopold pouted at Habim but went to get his flute anyway.

As Iseult unpacked her piccolo and Safi unpacked her mellophone, Iseult said, “I wonder how Habim did not know about the sex couch. He’s new but not that new.”

Safi shrugged. “Maybe he hasn’t heard anyone talk about it yet.”

“It’s possib-“

Iseult was interrupted as Merik walked in and tripped over Safi’s mellophone case.

“Hey Hastrel! Watch where you’re putting your junk.”

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going, Nihar?”

Iseult rolled her eyes at the argument (that happened every day) and picked up her phone as it buzzed. She smiled as she saw a text from Aeduan.

**I’m here. Want to give me a hand with some stuff in the car? <3**

**On my way. Safi and Merik are having another argument. Xoxo**

**Let me guess he tripped over her case again?**

**Yup.**

**Haha.**

Iseult walked out of the band room and towards her boyfriend’s car. Aeduan’s car was a white Owl that was as old as Iseult was. When Aeduan had first gotten the car, Iseult had hated it. She thought it was uncomfortable and just a pile of junk. Aeduan wanted Iseult to like his car as much as he did, and well. He succeeded after the events of seeing Avengers: Endgame at the drive-in theater. *

“Hello, Iseult. How are you doing today?” Aeduan smiled as she approached and opened his arms for a hug.

Iseult sighed as her boyfriend’s arms wrapped around her. “I’m good. What about you?”

Aeduan shrugged. “Better now I can see you.”

Iseult blushed and asked, “What did you need help with?”

“I stopped by Marstoki Café and bought too many cinnamon rolls and an extra coffee. I was hoping you would help me finish them off.”

Iseult stepped back and smiled. Marstoki Café was her favorite café in town. Aeduan knew full well that she could never get enough of their cinnamon rolls and coffee. “Give them here. I want a snack.”

Aeduan laughed and dropped his arms from Iseult to grab the to-go bag from the café. He handed the bag and her coffee to Iseult and locked the car before heading to the band room.

“So, what are Safi and Merik fighting about today?”

Iseult took a sip of her coffee and answered, “Merik tripped over Safi’s case.” As Aeduan opened the band room door, the sound of yelling reached them. “It looks like they’re still going at it.”

The couple walked in and made their way towards Merik and Safi to break up the argument. They were stopped by Leopold who yelled, “Hey Aeduan. Why didn’t you get anyone else treats?”

Lev snorted. “He isn’t crushing on anyone else so of course he didn’t get us treats.”

Aeduan blushed and muttered under his breath as he went to find Habim. Aeduan did not play an instrument- not with the band anyway. He worked with the band as a band aid. This meant he helped set things up and did what Habim and the assistant director Matthew asked him to.

No one in the band had yet figured out that Iseult and Aeduan had been dating for two years, ever since that biology project in 10th grade. Most band kids were generally oblivious, which Safi is currently screaming at Merik.

“You oblivious idiot! You know I put my case there all the time and yet you kee-“

“You know I walk there all the time! Move your stupid case out of the way you absolute-“

“Enough, you two,” said the assistant director Matthew. “Just get your instruments out.”

Safi growled but angrily sat down in her spot and began warming up. Merik stomped over to his seat and started unpacking his trumpet while talking to his best friend, the cymbal player Kullen.

Iseult walked to seat and heard Safi mutter, “Stupid Merik. He thinks he’s so hot, but he’s just an asshole.”

Iseult smiled. She knew that Safi was attracted to Merik and he to her, however much they would deny it. Kullen had been trying to get them together for years with help from his girlfriend Ryber. Iseult had joined Kullen’s antics when she first realized that Safi liked Merik. Nothing they tried so far had worked.

They weren’t ones to give up though.

Iseult was in the middle of her warm-up scales when Habim stepped up on the conductor’s platform.

“Ok everyone. We’ve got a lot to do today. We need to rehearse our show and set up for parade,” he began. “We are doing the homecoming parade next week. If you are on the court, you won’t be marching, and we’ll set up without you. Now get up and go et outside. We’ll do parade first.”

Everyone stood up and headed towards the door. Aeduan walked with Iseult and watched Merik and Safi give each other death glares as they went outside.

“I know they’re on the court,” he said. “What’s the betting they’ll win king and queen?”

Iseult laughed. “I don’t know about that. Caden and Vaness are doing pretty well.”

Aeduan smirked. “I bet you dinner that Safi and Merik win.”

Iseult smiled in return. “You’re on. What about I choose the next collab for our channels? You’ll pay for dinner anyway.”

The tips of Aeduan’s ears turned red. His girlfriend knew him too well. “Fine. As long as it isn’t something sappy.”

Iseult was about to respond when she heard Safi and Merik start another argument over who would get to march where in practice.

She sighed. It was going to be a long practice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update today, but I'm very busy this week. (Curse you college). The next update will be longer. Much thanks to my best friend for helping write this. She is the best. Oh and I guess I should add a warning for the mention of poop. I promise this is explained. Anyway, happy reading!- Moon

“I’m telling you Caden, it’s true!” *

“I believe it, but why why why did you have to tell me that?!”

Safi shook her head and said, “We had to suffer because of that information now you do too.”

Said information was Mozart’s apparent feces fetish. This had come up at the end of practice when Habim had asked what the band knew about Mozart ass they would be starting a lesson on him soon.

Lev had decided, for whatever reason on Earth, to share the fact that Mozart got hot and bothered over poo. Caden had missed the discussion in the band room since he had been in the bathroom. Lev had decided to fill him in when they met up at Safi’s house to work on their schoolwork.

Safi had not wanted to know that, but she couldn’t help but be curious about it. It was so _weird_.

“Was it human poo? Or animal poo? What was it about fecal matter that turned him on? Was it the smell-“

“Safi please!” Iseult cried. “Can you not ask?”

Safi sniffed in Iseult’s direction. “Well. I would like to know. I think they’re valid questions.”

Aeduan shuddered as he said, “No. No they are not.”

“Have it your way Mr. I-am-basically-dating-my-best-friend-but-won’t-ask-her-out,” said Safi.

Aeduan went red from the tops of his ears to below the collar of his T-shirt, and Iseult looked much the same as she shouted, “Screw you, Safi!”

Safi cackled and sat on the ground beside Caden to finish their history poster. They were currently studying the Renaissance and had to create a fake newspaper on events of the Renaissance. Their teacher, Eridysi, had said the students could be as creative as they wanted to as long as they had basic facts in the paper. **

This was a mistake.

Safi, Caden, and Lev had decided to be _very_ creative. Lev was doing the miscellaneous category on a woman who bathed once a month. Caden had claimed the religion category. He was writing about a fistfight between Martin Luther and the Pope (which he photoshopped a picture of). Safi took the science category.

She had already written her article and just had to glue down the photoshopped picture of the wedding on the poster. Safi had chosen to write about Galileo Galilei and his discovery of Jupiter’s moons. Safi’s creativeness had come through in her idea to have Galileo get stuck in thunderbolts and lightening that he found very, very frightening. He was saved by a mustached man wearing a dress who introduced himself as Freddie Mercury. He helped Galileo discover the moons, and they got married soon after.

Iseult looked over Safi’s shoulder from where she sat leaning against Aeduan’s legs and said, “Safi, why would you make so many bad references to Queen?”

“Because it’s funny and because Eridysi said be creative.”

Lev nodded. “This is creative.”

Aeduan looked at the poster. “It’s funny, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think that’s exactly what she meant.”

Safi shrugged and glued down the picture of Freddie and Galileo at their wedding and smirked. “Too late.”

Iseult shook her head and went back to her laptop.

The concentration of the room was broken by Leopold’s excited squeals. “Guys! There’s a new video and the description is _so_ cute!”

Everyone set aside their work and rushed over to Leopold’s laptop where he had a YouTube channel pulled up. The channel was called threadsofcolor and was run by a woman who played the piano, violin, and flute. She uploaded covers of everything from Mozart- Safi shuddered thinking of the name- to pop covers to folk songs. threadsofcolor also did collabs with a channel called whitecloakmonk. He was a man who played the cello.

No one knew who was behind either channel as threadsofcolor kept her face hidden behind music stands or her piano lid while whitecloakmonk wore a hooded white cloak that covered his face.

Their collabs were _beautiful_. And extremely popular.

Both channels tended to gush about the other in the video descriptions in a ridiculous way such as the newest video’s description:

**Threadsofcolor I loved working with @whitecloakmonk on this one. He made an awesome**

**choice <3\. Can’t wait to do another with you xoxo.**

The video was a cover of “lover of mine” by 5SOS. Wow. These two really weren’t trying to hide it where they?

“Play it Leopold. I want to hear this one,” said Safi.

The cover was _amazing_. Safi wished she knew who the players were. It would be nice to put faces to the playing. ***

Leopold sighed. “Oh, that was pretty.”

“Definitely a bop,” said Lev.

“I just wish we could see their faces,” said Safi. “I would like to see who can rock a cello so hard.”

Iseult snorted. “I bet we would all be surprised at that.”

“Probably,” agreed Caden.

At that moment, the doorbell rang.

Safi ran to the door to get the pizza she had ordered. She walked into the living room and yelled,” Hey guys! Pizza’s here!”

Everyone rushed away from Leopold’s laptop and ran towards the food.

Teenagers were hungry people after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The following conversation is a very recent one after my best friend told me about Mozart's thing after her college chorus class.
> 
> **Me and my best friend and I really did do this. We got a hundred. You were the best Franklin (our teacher).
> 
> ***Little does Safi know, she already has faces to the players.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Feel free to drop in my ask box on my Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gilded-moon. Have a happy (safe) Thanksgiving y'all!- Moon


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while but here's the next chapter. Enjoy! - Moon

Merik was in a bad mood. He was in film class, which was the worst elective in the entire Carawen school district if you asked him.

But the school required everyone to get a certain amount of elective credits before they graduated. Band class didn’t fill up the credit requirement completely, so Merik was forced to make choices. He had chosen film class because he thought it would be the least awful option. There was no way Merik would embarrass himself in pottery class again. *

In hindsight, he should’ve chosen pottery. At least that way, he wouldn’t have to sit through the pure agony of the latest set of films the teacher, Merik’s aunt Evrane, was taking them to watch in the auditorium.

“Evrane, _why_ are you making us suffer through Hallmark movies?” Merik _hated_ Hallmark movies. He thought they were corny, poorly written, and poorly acted. **

Evrane opened the auditorium door and led the class inside while answering, “Because you kids need to learn about different kinds of movies. Also, I quite enjoy them. Now you and Kullen go set up the projector.”

Merik groaned but did what his aunt asked. He and Kullen set up the projector in the back of the auditorium while Evrane helped Aeduan set up the projector screen on the stage.

Merik looked at Kullen who looked happy despite the suffering that awaited the class. “Why do you look happy knowing the shit we’re going to watch?”

Kullen shrugged. “These movies aren’t that bad.”

“How can you say that? No one in these movies can act and it’s the same plotline over and over with a different straight couple.”

“You’re right about that,” Kullen said. “But they are catchy once you watch a few.”

Merik had a sneaking suspicion where Kullen got that opinion from. “Ryber?”

Kullen confirmed the suspicion by nodding and saying, “Ryber.”

Merik was about to offer more of his opinion on Ryber’s taste in movies when Evrane called for the two boys to come join the rest of the class in front of the projector screen.

“Alright class,” she began. “As you know, today we are going to watch a movie in a style that I know many of you hate, Hallmark movies.”

A collective groan from the class interrupted Evrane’s lesson. This prompted a frown from Merik’s aunt.

“Quit your whining. You all need to watch different types of movies. Now, we are going to do a project with this. The project is to watch an assigned movie with a partner and write a paper on that movie. It will be worth 30% of your final grade. Now go ahead and pick your partners now. Make sure you sit by them too.”

That sounded terrible. Merik hated partner work to begin with and doing a crap project wouldn’t help with that. He sighed and turned to his best friend Kullen who he normally worked with. However, Kullen had his arm around Ryber and was shaking his head at Merik while wearing an, albeit terrifiying, smile.

So that was out. Merik turned to look at Aeduan but the vase-making bastard was grinning at him and shaking his head as he sat next to his girlfriend, Iseult.

_Are they up to something? Those grins look sneaky_ , Merik thought. _They have to be up to something_. ***

A glance around the room showed Merik that everyone else was partnered up. Everyone except for Safiya fon Hasstrel, the most irritating band kid Merik had ever met.

Safi _hated_ Merik and always had. The two of them had been fighting constantly since kindergarten. They had never once been able to get together.

He could, _would_ not work with her. He already had to deal with her in homecoming court, something that irritated Merik to no end, and he could not bear to work with her in class.

Merik was contemplating what do when he heard a quiet argument break out behind him.

“Iseult please. I’m begging you work with me on this,” Safi was saying. “The only other person available is that aggravating bastard.”

Iseult gave her best friend a wicked smile. “Sorry Saf. Aeduan already claimed me for this project.”

“And before you ask Safi, I’m not giving her up. You can work with Nihar for once,” Aeduan said.

“You two are horrible! I don’t have the patience to deal with him,” Safi responded.

“And I don’t have the patience to deal with this fooling around. You’re working with Merik for this project Safi. Now sit down,” Evrane called as she made her way up to the projector.

Safi glared at Evrane and Iseult before angrily making her way to sit beside Merik.

“Just so you know, I will do whatever I need to do to get a good grade, but I refuse to like you,” she sniffed.

Merik felt his temper flare but took a deep breath and kept it under control. “The feeling is mutal, Hasstrel. Let’s just get this over with.”

As Evrane began the movie, Merik cursed his luck for getting stuck with a terrible class and a horrid partner.

_But_ , Merik reminded himself. _You just have to watch one movie with her and write a paper on it. That’s not that bad. Besides, it’s not like this will bring about anything unexpected._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Stupid Aeduan and his good pottery skills. Merik's vase did not look like a misshapened lump Safi thank you very much.
> 
> **Look these up if you don't know what they are. They are awful but extremely addicting.
> 
> ***For once Merik is actually right about there being a conspiracy against him.

**Author's Note:**

> *The author would like to note that the reader can imagine whatever they would like as to what Aeduan did to convince Iseult to like his car.
> 
> My poor band director. (Yes the sex couch is real and she did fall asleep on it. To be fair, she didn't know.)
> 
> Questions? Theories? Snide remarks? Incoherant screaming? Throw it at my Tumblr, gilded-moon. Happy reading everyone!-Moon


End file.
